Jiang Yi had no idea what Shen Siyao was thinking. She had assumed Shen Siyao didn’t want to see her, but hearing herself called, she immediately walked over.
The translator glanced at Shen, then at Assistant Cheng, and instantly understood, he had given up his seat. He sat down next to Assistant Cheng. “Sorry, Miss Jiang, I sat in the wrong place.”
Jiang Yi looked at him, her voice gentle. “It’s fine.”
Shen Siyao’s eyes carried a chill, and on closer inspection, a hint of resentful grievance. She had come down quickly without bringing a coat, and the private room’s air conditioning wasn’t on yet both parties had just arrived so her back felt a bit cold.
Meanwhile, the four men across the table seemed to be sizing her up. They hadn’t expected the woman leading Baige to be so young and so beautiful. Naturally, they all felt a spark of admiration and couldn’t help stealing a few extra glances.
And the woman beside her in the tailored suit with a tie was also strikingly beautiful, clearly an elite with a commanding presence. Judging by her demeanor, she was presumably the leader’s right hand. They suddenly felt relieved that they had taken this collaboration seriously.
Jiang Yi sat down. Seeing Shen Siyao’s slightly hunched shoulders, and noticing the appraising gazes from across the table, she felt faintly displeased. Without a moment’s hesitation, she took off her suit jacket and draped it over Shen Siyao. The jacket was structured and roomy two sizes larger than her usual fitted suits, just enough to wrap around Shen Siyao’s upper body, warm and carrying the pleasant scent of Jiang Yi’s perfume.
It felt reassuring. But Shen Siyao, a little awkward and stubborn, said, “I don’t want to wear it.”
Jiang Yi disagreed, tucking the jacket around her firmly. “No. You’ll catch a cold like this.” Shen Siyao’s dress left her back and the butterfly of her shoulder blades half-bare, it would get cold at night. What if she caught a chill? Jiang Yi herself was wearing a shirt, so she had no such worry.
Shen Siyao’s nose tingled with a sour ache. In fact, the moment Jiang Yi had taken off her jacket, the fur that had bristled up on Shen Siyao was smoothed right back down. Her voice grew quieter. “But I just don’t want to wear yours.”
Jiang Yi understood. She thought for a moment, then negotiated with her. “Then wear it for a bit while I go get your coat.”
She started to rise, but Shen Siyao grabbed her sleeve, her proud tone awkward and reluctant. “Forget it. Let’s just make do.” She didn’t want to wear her own coat.
The corners of Jiang Yi’s lips curved slightly. She knew Yaoyao could be tsundere at times, saying the opposite of what she meant. If she truly disliked something, Shen Siyao would refuse outright and cleanly not with this vague, muddled attitude.
In Assistant Cheng’s eyes, this was clearly President Shen acting coquettish toward Miss Jiang. She forcibly pressed down the smile tugging at the corner of her mouth again. The translator’s clear, innocent eyes couldn’t make sense of it, and the four men across the table were also rather baffled. What exactly were these two talking about? Or were they discussing the collaboration? Why did the atmosphere always feel so impenetrable?
Fortunately, not much time was wasted barely two minutes. Facing outsiders, Shen Siyao was much more composed. “Let’s begin.”
No translation was needed to understand that sentence. The man seated in the middle across the table was called Harkit, and he appeared to be their leader. He pushed a document over, and Cheng Le took it and opened it.
Then she slid it around in a few circles and handed it over for Shen Siyao to review. Shen Siyao nodded, and Cheng Le turned to the translator. “Tell them they can trade for all of these parts, but as for the payment, it must go through domestic taxation.”
Some countries preferred to use their local currency when trading with China partly because currency conversion procedures were a hassle, and partly because there was also the option of bartering goods for goods. Of course, if the money didn’t go through open accounts, a sum in taxes could be avoided as well, but the company was law-abiding and legitimate; it would never do such a thing.
The translator nodded and began relaying Cheng Le’s words to the people across the table. A man seated in the middle of the opposite side widened his eyes slightly and said something very quickly, gesturing with his hands as though asking a question.
Shen Siyao looked up at the translator. “What is he saying?”
The translator seemed to have run into a problem, his expression turning ugly. “This is a bit bad. It sounds like they’re speaking the Roshman language.” He had only vaguely identified it from the sounds. In Switzerland, the official languages included German, French, Italian, and Roshman. The hired translator was fluent in German and Italian, and Cheng Le also knew French and Italian, but the fourth language alone was one that circulated only in a small village in a remote part of Graubünden. Not only was this language extremely niche, its dialects were complicated as well, and very few people would deliberately set out to learn it. It could even be said that “worldwide, the number of Roshman speakers is smaller than the number of people learning Latin.” Even the translator had never imagined that these people would, by such a coincidence, all come from that very place.
He was at a complete loss, a disastrous start.
Although the Roshman language was also one of Switzerland’s official languages, the number of people who used it was tiny. For example, according to the Federal Statistical Office’s year-end structural statistics, the population stood at roughly 8.655 million, yet the number of Roshman speakers was a mere forty to sixty thousand less than 0.5% of the total.
Cheng Le knit her brows, her expression grave. This was her dereliction of duty. Language was vitally important in social dealings, yet she had let a sliver of wishful thinking make her overlook this point, it had never even crossed her mind.
Even if they tried to find a translator on short notice now, it wasn’t something that could be managed just like that. It would take time.
Shen Siyao spoke in a low, faint tone. “Then what do we do now?” When a problem arose, it should be solved; demanding answers now was no solution. Shen Siyao had never been one to actively blame others. In other words, even if Cheng Le hadn’t been thorough enough in her considerations, Shen Siyao herself hadn’t thought of it either, the oversight was not the responsibility of any single person.
There would be time to assign blame later, but not now.
The translator suddenly thought of something. “I have an older cousin who supposedly knows the Roshman language. I heard she recently came here for work. If I contact her now, it would probably take her about an hour to get here.”
The taut look on Cheng Le’s face eased at once. “That’s great. Contact her right now and see.” An hour was admittedly a long time, but if the problem could truly be solved, then they could stall for a while.
Watching the two of them go back and forth, unable to squeeze in a word, Jiang Yi raised her hand at that moment. “Um, let me try.”
All three of them looked at her at the same time.
Shen Siyao’s languid, alluring eyes arched slightly, hook-like, thoughtful at this moment. After all, she had just heard the translator say that the Roshman language was an obscure, little-used tongue, known only in some small village, “Luobin” or whatever it was called.
What was more, as far as she knew, the Roshman language had already been listed by UNESCO as an endangered language.
Cheng Le was somewhat skeptical, but thinking of Jiang Yi’s past abilities, she seemed like a savior in this moment, as if crowned with a halo: “Miss Jiang knows Roshman too?”
The translator looked at her and gave a wry smile: “Miss Jiang, please don’t force yourself. To be honest, Roshman even has regional dialects. I once intended to learn it, but compared to the languages of major countries, it was too obscure, so I gave up.” So, even though he knew this Miss Jiang was someone Mr. Shen valued, he didn’t quite believe that anyone would actually learn such a niche language out of sheer boredom. Translation was a lucrative profession, but niche languages weren’t in demand, since the odds of encountering one were barely one percent.
There was no need to spend so much time and energy on it.
Jiang Yi indeed hadn’t learned it out of boredom. The company’s founder was surnamed Jiang, and she had once liaised with a translation firm on an AI tech system. To verify its accuracy, she had stayed for a while in a small village where the language was spoken, which was how she came to learn it. She never expected it to come in handy at a time like this.
But after so long, she might be a bit rusty, so she could only say modestly: “Just a little.”
Just a little Shen Siyao suddenly felt relieved and gave the order: “Then give it a try.” To avoid seeming too cold-hearted, Shen Siyao spoke again: “It’s fine if the translation doesn’t work out. It’s just one deal.”
If the language barrier couldn’t be overcome, there was nothing she could do, but Mr. Shen didn’t lack that much money. They could either renegotiate next time or abandon the deal entirely, she just didn’t want to put pressure on Jiang Yi.
Jiang Yi felt a touch of warmth in her heart. The translator sat beside her and, with simple, carefully chosen words, indicated that from now on, Jiang Yi would be handling the remaining discussions with them.
Jiang Yi: “Allegra! Bun di”, a greeting, meaning hello. One meant happiness or hello, in dialect form; the other was the standard language.
The man’s eyes lit up slightly: “Allegra!” Jiang Yi understood, it was their local dialect. She translated Cheng Le’s earlier words into sentences.
The man looked slightly troubled, then replied to her again. Jiang Yi thought for a moment and continued speaking.
Cheng Le’s and the translator’s eyes also lit up, the two pronunciations matched, the signals aligned.
Shen Siyao’s gaze, however, was fixed on Jiang Yi. From the initial probing to the now-fluent, effortless flow her speaking pace almost matched the man’s across the table. That face, which looked so strikingly cool, now had eyes that were confident and bright, calm and composed.
It seemed only natural that was the Jiang Yi she knew.
Jiang Yi’s voice was beautiful, a classic mature, commanding voice, elegant and crisp, with a distinctly refined quality. Her tone flowed like spring water under a gentle breeze, carrying a magnetic allure.
Shen Siyao’s gaze drifted down to her lips. Jiang Yi happened to glance over, and instantly faltered, her mind stalling, a long stretch of blankness pulling at her brain nothing but the scene she had just seen.
A face so beautiful it stole the soul, those bewitching fox-eyes and the smile at the corner of her lips dealing a fatal blow. At that moment, she was relaxed, one hand casually propping up her chin, thin lips curved slightly not mocking, not awkward. To put it precisely, she was watching Jiang Yi’s mouth.
Jiang Yi felt her heart suddenly go thump, a skipped beat. Cheng Le didn’t notice. The translator they’d brought didn’t notice.
Even the four men across the table merely thought she was pausing for breath, still listening intently.
She grew a little anxious, biting her lip. That focus she had always prided herself on seemed utterly defenseless and fragile in Shen Siyao’s presence.
And by her ear, a soft breath tickled her, as if mocking her or teasing her. When that scorching gaze finally shifted away, a flush of pink rose to the tips of Jiang Yi’s ears.