Chapter 23: Meeting Mina Again

"Cousin, I'll have to trouble you to put some extra effort into the matter I asked of you."

Park Se-min patted Xia Xing on the shoulder and walked into the elevator leading to the Peninsula International headquarters, stifling a yawn.

Since the offices for Peninsula Foods were located in a different building within the same complex, Xia Xing had to walk a bit further to reach his company. It was only 7:30 in the morning, a full hour and a half before the nine-o'clock start time. The complex was sparse, with only a few trucks busy loading and unloading goods.

Standing in front of the elevator and yawning himself, Xia Xing mentally calculated his schedule for the day. He would finish the pending marketing proposal, turn it into a PowerPoint, and email it to Team Leader Shen Heli. During lunch, he would meet with a colleague from the sales department to probe for information on their recent channel budget. As for the afternoon, if nothing else came up, he would review the personnel files of the various department heads to see if he could find any clues.

As Xia Xing pondered, the elevator door chimed and slid open. With so few people in the company at this hour, neither the person inside nor Xia Xing expected anyone to be walking toward them, resulting in a crisp collision.

Both instinctively looked up, and the faces that met their eyes left them stunned for a moment.

"Why are you here?"
"You're here so early?"

The young woman who had collided with Xia Xing possessed a cold yet alluring face. She wore a grey wool blazer over a black cashmere tunic and a knee-length skirt—a look that was both formal and gracefully composed. Mina Myoui clutched her forehead, walked out of the elevator with a hint of reproach, and looked at the tall man in the beige trench coat without saying a word. It was as if she were waiting for an explanation.

Xia Xing squinted, eyeing the documents in Mina's arms as he said, "This is my company; I'm here for work. But you... why are you here?"

To his surprise, Mina completely ignored his question. She narrowed her eyes as well, observing the dark circles under Xia Xing's eyes. "Didn't sleep well last night? Since we've run into each other, want to go grab a tea?"

"Sure. This is my home turf, after all; my treat."

Because Mina had completely controlled the rhythm of their last conversation, Xia Xing wanted to regain the upper hand on his own ground, so he accepted her invitation. During tea, he could try to pry some information out of her.

"What time did you go to sleep last night?"
"It was already the early hours of the morning. It was a rough night."

Thinking of the mess Park Se-min had left, Xia Xing still felt a wave of nausea. He didn't feel the need to posture in such mundane conversation, so he answered honestly. However, for some reason, his words caused Mina, who was walking beside him, to let her face fall. From a certain angle, she looked almost like a disgruntled young wife from a television drama.

She quickly adjusted her demeanor, however, and said in a very flat tone, "Don't squander your health just because you're young."

"Cleaning up isn't exactly squandering my health, is it? It's not often I have to do any cleaning, anyway."

"Cleaning?"

Under Mina's puzzled gaze, Xia Xing furrowed his brows slightly. "Yes. I'm sorry, I didn't explain myself clearly at the beginning."

Realizing she had misunderstood and feeling embarrassed, Mina skipped over his apology, attempting to shift his attention to another topic. She didn't want to continue the previous conversation; the different interpretations of the word "rough" had already caused enough of a misunderstanding.

"I'm here for a visit. I don't have much to do these days, so I came early." Mina gestured with the meeting list in her hand, which was filled with names of minor shareholders of Peninsula Foods—evidently, she was one of them.

"I didn't realize your investment portfolio was this significant. You've actually become a minor shareholder." Xia Xing took the list. Most of the names were investment firms, though there were individuals like Mina who had purchased shares for personal wealth management.

Recalling her previous comment about Peninsula Foods being "too big to fail," his curiosity deepened. "If you don't think highly of the company, why buy shares? Aren't you afraid of losing everything?"

"One jasmine oolong. What would you like?" Mina asked while looking at the menu at the tea shop, reaching out to take back her documents from Xia Xing. "Even if I don't think highly of this company's operations, sometimes, people are a very important part of a company."

"Same for me."

Feeling the pointedness of her gaze, for a moment, he felt that Mina was referring to him. Because the shop had just opened, there were no other customers, and the two jasmine oolongs were prepared quickly. Mina handed one to Xia Xing, and they chose a tent seat with a view of the river.

"Perhaps it's precisely because we've gathered so many industry elites that our company has run into some trouble," Xia Xing joked, not worried that Mina might fish for internal secrets. After all, compared to the vast scale of Peninsula Foods, even if Mina sold all her shares, it wouldn't cause a ripple in the market. Furthermore, her primary career was as an idol; she couldn't publicly disparage the company.

"Is that so? I don't know much about that... but I do know that Xia Xuhe will not give up on Peninsula Foods."

"After all, this is where he made his start. If not for the cash flow and reputation provided by Peninsula Foods, the Xia family wouldn't be where it is today."

"So, at least in the short term, your company is still a relatively reliable asset. It’s not a bad choice for hedging other risks."

As an outside investor without inside information, Mina’s assessment was actually quite impressive. However, since the end of 2019, the downturn in consumer spending and the increasingly diverse sales channels had pushed consumer giants like Peninsula Foods, which relied heavily on traditional offline channels, into a significant operational crisis. Inside the Xia family, there were many voices calling for the sale of Peninsula Foods, urging Xia Xuhe to focus his capital and manpower on more profitable financial and real estate ventures.

It was precisely for this reason that Xia Xuhe had arranged for Xia Xing to undergo rotational training at Peninsula Foods, rather than placing him in a management position at the head office like his other children. He wanted to cultivate someone within the family who understood the food industry to help the old man shoulder some of the pressure.

"It seems you've done quite a bit of research into Xia Xuhe's personality," Xia Xing remarked with a sigh. To think someone would study the history of his family's rise and Xia Xuhe's character just for the sake of an investment—it seemed Mina had truly put in a lot of effort for her financial planning.

"Yes, and I've also done quite a bit of research on you."