The boardroom at Beichang Tower was intentionally understated.
No gilded panels.
No ostentatious chandeliers.
No portraits of founders glaring down in permanent judgment.
Glass, steel, and light.
The table was a single slab of dark walnut — twelve seats, no elevated head. The design had been debated when the tower was built. Investors had expected a traditional arrangement: one dominant position facing the city, subtly higher, subtly central.
Yiyai had declined it.
Authority did not require theatrics.
It required clarity.
Outside the wall of windows, the skyline stretched in a lattice of concrete and reflected sunlight. The city had grown denser in recent years — mergers reshaped districts, old conglomerates dissolved, new firms rose like carefully plotted equations.
And at the c
