Su Minguan turned to Shi Peng, saying coolly: “You’ve been in this business for years now, how are you getting worse and worse? Shouldn’t these terms roll off your tongue? Making the customer wait so long.”

His words were measured, but his tone was chillingly cold.

“I’ll take over this deal. Come find me after you get off work.”

He wasn’t the kind of leader who was gentle as a spring breeze. In business management, he belonged to the iron-fisted school. With just two sentences, he made Shi Peng feel utterly ashamed, bowing his head in acknowledgment: “I’ll be more careful in the future.”

Lin Yuchan bit her lip, thinking to herself that someone recovering from drug addiction being able to do this well was already quite remarkable.

But then, remembering her “shareholder rights,” she held back again and again, keeping her mouth shut.

Every enterprise has its style. She needed to learn to accommodate that.

After Shi Peng left, Su Minguan noticed she still hadn’t signed and politely asked: “Miss Lin, do you have any other questions?”

His tone was such that it completely prevented any stray thoughts from arising. Lin Yuchan thought for a moment, then raised the question that had long puzzled her.

“If my goods get damp and waterlogged, or are ruined for some other reason, how would compensation work?”

Su Minguan was already prepared for this, sitting down across from Lin Yuchan to educate her: “If goods are damaged, the current practice among Chinese shipping companies is for both parties to negotiate, each bringing their backers for support. How much compensation you can negotiate depends entirely on your skill. If no agreement can be reached, you can go to court.”

He paused, then smiled slightly, saying: “However, since Yixing reopened, we haven’t damaged a single piece of cargo. If you go with another company, it definitely won’t be as safe as here.”

Lin Yuchan smiled back with a retort: “If I went with another company, even if the ship sank, I might still be able to talk my way into full compensation with my silver tongue.”

Su Minguan couldn’t help but smile, saying with dignified propriety: “Miss Lin, you should have confidence in yourself. Don’t think of me as so frightening.”

“Boss Su,” Lin Yuchan countered, “you shouldn’t think of yourself as so invincible either.”

These days, the world wasn’t peaceful, with local rebellions one after another. Once you left the city, there were bandits and gangs everywhere—too many uncertain factors.

Perhaps ancient people were already accustomed to this high-risk state. But she wasn’t.

She said, “If something goes wrong, I want full compensation.”

Su Minguan nodded, “That’s possible. Double the shipping fee.”

Lin Yuchan blurted out: “That insurance premium is way too expensive!”

“Insurance premium?” Su Minguan was puzzled for a moment, then realized what she meant and laughed: “This is a shipping company, not an insurance company.”

“Insurance compa…”

Lin Yuchan was startled by him instead. Were there insurance companies this early?

Su Minguan looked at her strangely for a moment. This Miss Lin was sometimes clever and full of ideas, one after another. Other times she seemed naive and inexperienced, like a country bumpkin from rural Foshan.

He told her that foreign insurance companies had indeed established offices in treaty ports, but insurance licenses were monopolized by foreigners, who only accepted large-scale maritime shipping contracts. Small-scale insurance like what Lin Yuchan wanted was just a small change that no one would consider.

Moreover, Chinese people rarely bought insurance—it was all foreigners worrying unnecessarily. So many ships passed on rivers and seas every day, and only a few had accidents. Everyone thought bad luck wouldn’t fall on them. Even if they were truly unlucky, people would just go to temples to burn incense and pray to Buddha, asking for smooth travels next time.

After Lin Yuchan listened to his explanation, she summarized: “So… shipping companies can’t also handle insurance business?”

Su Minguan shook his head. There was no such industry practice.

But he wasn’t someone who rigidly followed conventions, immediately saying: “This business exists now. If you want to do it, let’s figure it out together.”

He was completely confident in Yixing’s safety. As for insurance, it was people giving him money anyway—why not?

Lin Yuchan immediately said: “One percent of the shipping fee price, insuring all cargo value… oh, and delayed delivery compensation.”

Su Minguan immediately replied: “Excluding goods that spoil or are damaged on their own.”

…

Now that both of them had money, their haggling was very civilized—just moving their lips.

Fortunately, with foreign insurance companies’ rates as reference, they couldn’t negotiate anything too outrageous. Most of the time was spent carefully picking apart clauses, trying to trap each other, writing out five or six pages.

Natural disasters and war damage not covered, customer breach not covered, sudden tax changes split fifty-fifty between both parties, how to compensate for total loss versus partial loss…

Finally, Su Minguan gently massaged his wrist, looking disdainfully at that thick stack of papers.

“I went looking for trouble.”

After saying this, the corners of his mouth turned up, and his eyes showed satisfaction.

Designing a work from nothing. This kind of fresh, exciting challenge could best stimulate people’s primitive competitive instincts.

But Lin Yuchan felt it still wasn’t enough. When modern people bought insurance, which insurance policy wasn’t a thick stack? Of course, she never read them carefully. Did anyone read through them completely?

This led to her now being able to think of only twenty or thirty clauses even after racking her brains, which was already her best effort.

But she had to push through with it.

Only with insurance could she feel at ease!

Foreign trading houses wouldn’t sell insurance to Chinese people, but someone was custom-making it for her!

Thinking this way, she was in full spirits and highly motivated.

It was just that after this round of negotiations, she felt as if her body had been hollowed out. Exhausted, she signed her name at the bottom of the contract, slumped in her chair, and laughed dazedly for a while.

So much so that when Su Minguan quietly approached and asked softly in her ear: “Can I keep this contract draft?”

Without thinking, she waved her hand: “Whatever…”

Hearing his bright laughter, she realized she seemed to have been taken advantage of…

She decided to go with the flow, saying: “I’ll give it to you for free. You worked hard today—eat more at lunch to make up for it.”

Be generous when it’s time to be generous. Not like certain penny-pinching big bosses who play Lei Feng once a year, but the rest of the time would rather die than take a loss, willing to degrade themselves over a one percent difference in share price, not hesitating to use seductive wiles…

She forcefully reined in her runaway thoughts and coughed.

“By the way, I want to go see those two ships you allocated to me, to inspect them.”

This was also a reasonable customer request. Su Minguan pointed toward the back hall passage: “Please.”

The two ships were moored on one side of the dock, indeed bright and shiny, with thick masts, looking very stable. The maintenance log showed that the last service dates were all within the past month.

Lin Yuchan had someone put down planks and personally went aboard, going down to the lower hold to inspect and confirm the storage capacity and safety level.

Su Minguan pulled her up, smiling as he asked: “Satisfied now?”

She smiled and said, “Mm,” then handed him the signed contract.

As they were about to leave the cabin, she suddenly heard Su Minguan ask: “Did you go on a blind date?”

Lin Yuchan jumped up, her face completely red. The deck swayed twice.

“You… you… How do you know…”

Seeing the ambiguous smile floating at the corners of his mouth, he gently closed the cabin door while looking at her provocatively.

“A’Mei, you’re underage.”

When he called her “A’Mei” instead of “Miss Lin,” it meant he had switched from business mode to personal mode. Lin Yuchan’s internal alarms went off full blast.

She controlled her temper and asked calmly: “How do you know?”

Su Minguan smiled: “Didn’t you check if there were any symbols at the teahouse entrance when you went in?”

A surge of anger rose in Lin Yuchan’s heart, finding it hard to believe.

“You were monitoring me.”

This meant they had to end their friendship. She grabbed the contract and stuffed it into her bag. The ship was still swaying as she held the wall and walked away.

Su Minguan froze, his smile disappearing, immediately saying: “The teahouse owner had a dispute with another member yesterday and came to Yixing headquarters for arbitration. He mentioned it in passing. The owner had never seen this new-style blind dating and told it as a joke. He didn’t know the names of those involved, but…”

Lin Yuchan’s heartbeat calmed down, feeling she had been a bit impulsive, and turned around.

Su Minguan still had a cold expression, finishing the second half of his sentence: “…but as soon as I heard that description, I knew it had to be you. Don’t worry, I’ve already ordered him not to spread it around.”

Lin Yuchan was silent for a long while before quietly explaining: “I went because I couldn’t save face… didn’t want to upset my landlord… they said it was just playing mahjong, and if I didn’t like the person, I could look and cut ties cleanly…”

Su Minguan’s tone became more serious: “Why you went is none of my business. You didn’t go to someone’s home but chose a teahouse—that was cautious. But teahouses are public places after all, where others have eyes and ears, can see and hear, and spread the word. You should have anticipated this. And not…”

Not explode the moment someone mentions it, as if someone had spied on you.

These words carried a note of reproach. But compared to how he had just reproached Shi Peng, this was already as gentle as a spring breeze on willows.

Lin Yuchan readily admitted her mistake: “I wrongly accused you. I shouldn’t have thought so badly of you. I’m sorry.”

Su Minguan sighed: “I should also reflect on why you would think so badly of me.”

This was essentially turning the tables. Lin Yuchan thought to herself, don’t you know what kind of image you big scheming merchant have in my heart?

She raised her eyelashes and smiled: “Then you’d better reflect well. After you’re done reflecting, write an eight-hundred-word reflection and hand it to me.”

“I’ve been misunderstood plenty. Your little misunderstanding just now doesn’t count for anything.” Su Minguan suddenly composed his expression, looking melancholy, saying softly: “For instance, when I was small, just when I started working as an errand boy for Jardine Matheson & Co., I was called a traitor and spat on.”

Lin Yuchan’s heart shook, and she couldn’t help but turn to look at him.

He gave her a lonely smile, with tiny lights flowing in his eyes, carrying three parts of grievance.

Her thoughts suddenly reversed, returning to Guangzhou when the cotton flowers bloomed. Children queuing for porridge under the cathedral, the noisy crowds on Shangxiajiu, a row of criminals wearing cangues outside the county office…

The corners of her eyes trembled slightly, her heart a mixture of emotions. She forgot about the joke about “eight-hundred-word reflection,” her heart full of wanting to comfort him.

But not knowing what to say, she finally asked softly: “So what did you do?”

Su Minguan’s expression changed, finally saying word by word:

“Of course I spat back. Twice.”

Having said this, he smiled cheerfully, savoring the memory for a moment.

Lin Yuchan: “…”

Su Minguan raised an eyebrow, walked closer two steps, stopping two feet away from her. This distance couldn’t be called intrusive, but it was intimate enough—close enough to count her eyelashes and see her subtle emotions clearly.

He smiled lazily: “So you see, I am a vindictive bad person. Just now, someone got angry at me for no reason, and I can’t wait—I must get angry back immediately.”

He spoke as if it were perfectly justified and reasonable, his beautiful eyes turning left and right, brazenly looking at her face, pretending to think deeply.

Lin Yuchan gritted her teeth. This person spoke half-truths and half-lies, just playing with people!

However, when his childish side came out, it meant he had played with her enough and had gotten over his anger.

So she cooperatively played submissive: “Young master, spare me! I know I was wrong. You’re magnanimous—don’t take it to heart.”

Su Minguan was very satisfied with her reaction, pursing his lips in a smile as he pushed open the cabin door.

Seeing her go out, he suddenly felt somewhat disappointed, thinking that little girls were really easy to coax.

When he was small, he was vindictive and couldn’t bear grievances. But what about now?

Now he had also learned to endure humiliation, full of scheming, hiding his precious sharp edges.

Making people guard against him, making people dislike him, making people harbor reservations, and not dare to confide in him.

When he gave well-meaning reminders, people’s first reaction was “you’re monitoring me.”

Hot wind surged in, and the deck swayed again. Su Minguan asked seemingly casually: “Who was the other party?”

Lin Yuchan was startled: “What other party?”

After thinking about it herself, she understood and said mournfully: “Why are you still harping on this?”

But she had just said “young master spare me” and “please calm down”—not answering this question would be too insincere.

She weighed it for a moment and said, “Um… he’s someone who believes in Christianity. His name… I didn’t remember his name. Anyway, we just met briefly.”

Giving Chang Baoluo some face. Boya had long-term contracts with Yixing, and he would still be dealing with Su Minguan in the future.

Su Minguan helped her out of the cabin, his soft voice brushing past her ear.

“A’Mei, don’t marry anyone.”

Lin Yuchan’s outstretched leg froze on the gangway, half her face flickering in sunlight, feeling a bit hot.