4 The Exhibition

The next morning, Su Jin first made a trip to the company branch with Assistant Zhang, who had come to pick her up.

The branch was in a residential unit in a suburb. This was Su Jin's second time coming here, so she did not act very surprised. Nevertheless, Assistant Zhang went out of his way to explain everything to Su Jin. Real estate in G Province was extremely expensive, and the branch was newly established, so their offices were small. At the same time, they did not have a lot of staff either.

Su Jin pouted slightly. There were not a lot of staff members here, but she remembered that they had a ridiculous female manager here. In the past life, that woman kept causing her trouble during the exhibition. It was probably because Su Jin was young, pretty, and adept at foreign languages, so the manager thought that her spotlight was being stolen. She even pretended not to understand Su Jin when Su Jin was interpreting for the clients, trying to put Su Jin in a rough spot. The deal fell through later, and the ridiculous manager was demoted, but Su Jin still felt repulsed just thinking about someone like her. Well, Su Jin did not plan to make an impression on anyone here anyway this time, so she might as well just avoid that manager whenever possible!

The exhibition was about to begin, and the other staff members from the branch office were already there, so Assistant Zhang brought Su Jin directly to the general manager's room for introductions. The general manager of the branch, Wang He, welcomed Su Jin politely and gave her the exhibition work pass he had prepared in advance.

Su Jin carefully hung the pass around her neck. They did not come here to waste time, after all. They had made this trip specifically to get this pass of hers. The exhibition was being held at the provincial capital, which meant it was an event that not everyone could just wander into. Only representatives from the participating merchants or invited companies were allowed to enter.

After they exchanged some pleasantries, the three of them headed to the exhibition. As usual, Assistant Zhang was the one driving.

Wang He got into the backseat and immediately took out his laptop, hammering away at the keyboard. Su Jin sat next to him, with absolutely no intention of starting a conversation and distracting him. Even Assistant Zhang did not chatter as incessantly as he usually did.

Just then, a robotic female voice spoke from Assistant Zhang's navigation system. "Shorter route detected. ETA minus eight minutes. Reroute?"

Assistant Zhang was about to hit 'yes' when Su Jin stopped him from the backseat.

Su Jin belatedly realized that her abrupt interference was quite inappropriate. Even Wang He stopped typing and looked at her curiously.

"Um, what I meant was, I usually don't take the new route in these situations. After all, everyone's using the same navigation system, right? And they'll all have gotten the suggestion to reroute at this spot, so the new path will end up seeing even heavier traffic." Su Jin could barely stand the awkwardness, but there was no turning back now.

She could not just tell them that they had taken the new route in her past life, only to encounter a four-car pile-up ahead. Their car had been fine, but it had set them behind for two whole hours. They had ended up arriving at the location late and even missed the staff presentation.

She still remembered how Assistant Zhang had turned bright red from the guilt.

Upon hearing Su Jin's explanation, Assistant Zhang still wished he had taken the faster route, but he smiled at her nevertheless and assured her that it was fine.

The three of them arrived at the exhibition center with no further problems.

This robotics exhibition was being held by several hundred companies of different sizes. There were eight main themed displays, and Su Jin's company had a booth in the construction surveying hall. At themed exhibitions like this one, the booths were mostly arranged in the center and right side of the hall.

Assistant Zhang brought Su Jin and Wang He to their booth. Once they arrived at the reception desk at their booth entrance, Su Jin immediately caught sight of that plump manager.

However, Su Jin seemed to have truly forgotten her name. When the chubby manager saw the three of them, she only greeted Wang He. On the other hand, Assistant Zhang enthusiastically introduced Su Jin to everyone else present.

The presentation did not go for too long, either. Wang He merely introduced their most important products and outlined their future goals, before then encouraging his staff to keep up the good work. He had both the chubby manager and Su Jin stand at the entrance to the booth, where Su Jin eventually found out that the chubby manager's name was Wang Linda.

Come to think of it, she had heard back at HQ that the two people in charge of the branch were the 'Two Wangs'. They must have meant Wang He and Wang Linda.

This time, Su Jin did not want to start any more conflicts with Wang Linda. After all, she was planning to sneak into the other two themed halls during her break time.

Wang Linda was the one who knew the products best, so Wang He arranged for Su Jin to work with her and introduce their products to any foreign clients who might drop by.

The morning went by uneventfully. Wang Linda doubted Su Jin's language skills at first, but when they encountered two foreign clients later in the morning, Su Jin performed well enough. At the same time, Su Jin had been quite modest, staying in her lane as Wang Linda's interpreter. When they began discussing rates and logistics, Su Jin immediately handed the floor to Wang Linda, saying that this was not her forte.

Wang Linda was more than pleased to see her name on all the completed invoices.

Soon, it was their noon break. Su Jin brought over two cups of coffee and gave one of them to Wang Linda.

Wang Linda did not thank her, merely giving Su Jin an offhand compliment about her 'decent, workable' English proficiency. 

Su Jin inwardly rolled her eyes. If Wang Linda was so good, she should do everything herself. However, Su Jin had not forgotten why she had brought these two cups of coffee, so she kept up her obedient act.

"You young people are still green behind the ears. For the rest of the month, you should just listen to me if you know what's good for you." Wang Linda was quite happy with Su Jin's attitude so far. The girl did not seem to pose much of a threat to her. What Su Jin said next removed any last traces of wariness she might have had.

"Sis Linda, to tell you the truth, I only plan to stay here for a week. Something sudden came up back home, and they want me back as soon as possible. I just don't know how to break it to Mr. Wang." Su Jin looked extremely troubled.

"What? You're going back?" Wang Linda pretended to look shocked, but there was no hiding her glee. She could finally try to get her cousin this job! The truth was Wang Linda did not dislike Su Jin purely because she was afraid Su Jin would steal her glory. Since before the exhibition, she had wanted to bring her cousin, a recent linguistics graduate, into the company. She had even promised her cousin that she would sort everything out. Later, Su Jin came out of nowhere and ended up embarrassing Wang Linda in front of her family.

"They really need me back home, so I don't have a choice," Su Jin said with a pained smile.

Wang Linda acted like a considerate older sister, saying, "In that case, I won't force you to stay. Don't worry, I'll tell Mr. Wang for you."

"Really? That's great! Thank you, Sis Linda!" She just had to act like a silly innocent princess, right? Easy peasy!

At the same time, Wang He had been browsing the news during his break, and he happened to see a report saying that there was a four-car pile-up at Riverbend Road. Five people died and three more were in critical condition. It was pandemonium over there, and the accident caused two-hour delays in the traffic there.

Riverbend Road was the path Su Jin had stopped Assistant Zhang from taking earlier that morning. Wang He was glad that Assistant Zhang had listened to Su Jin and stayed on his original path, but was it truly a coincidence that the girl had asked them to stay away?

Assistant Zhang was feeling equally thankful. Su Jin had to be his lucky charm! Not only had they avoided the accident, they did not get caught in the traffic either. If Mr. Wang ended up arriving late because of a decision he made, Assistant Zhang would regret it for the rest of his life! That was no exaggeration!

Su Jin chatted with Wang Linda for a while before excusing herself to go to the washroom. Once she was out of sight, she made a beeline for the other halls. There were two displays of interest to her, one for oil presses and the other for international tools and construction materials.

Since the latter was closer, Su Jin headed for the tools exhibit first.

Her noon break was not that long. For now, Su Jin just wanted to see what they had.

In her past life, Su Jin had only oohed and ahhed at these unfamiliar things. This time, Su Jin grew more excited the more she looked around. If she could procure these blades and tools, her family's safety would be all the more secure.

Su Jin then turned into a booth selling large knives and immediately saw a knife with a silver hilt hanging at the door. Out of safety concerns, the exhibition had mandated that all blades here were chained up, so no one could just take one and go crazy with it.

Su Jin wanted to touch the knife to feel its quality, but a voice suddenly yelled at her to stop. It made Su Jin jump, and her finger wound up touching the tip of the blade.

There was a jolt of pain. Su Jin looked at her hand and saw that the blood had flowed down to her wrist.

"Geez, didn't I tell ya not to touch it? Look at ya now! Just so ya know, this ain't on us."

Su Jin finally looked at the person speaking to her. It was a thin young man with glasses, and his local accent nearly made her laugh.

"Sorry, I didn't know your knives were so sharp."

Su Jin was not angry at all, because the depth of her wound told her that the blade was perfectly sharp enough. She had already made up her mind to buy some weapons from this company.

The bespectacled man saw that Su Jin was not going to blame them for anything, and his attitude improved accordingly. He turned around, muttering to himself as he took out a first aid kit.

"Sheesh, this is just the first day! Then we get blood before business. This ain't a good sign, not at all. How unlucky." He sighed and gestured at Su Jin to hold out her hand. Once she did, he bandaged her up.

After he was done, he continued to praise her. "That's a lotta blood, girlie, but you ain't complainin' at all. Nice un."

Su Jin could not help it. She laughed at her accent. "I was never scared of needles, even as a kid. I barely cried during my shots. By the way, handsome, are you the only one here?"

The man with the glasses grinned when she called him handsome. "Business ain't all that, so I'm all ya got. Least that means I'm the only one getting the commission, eh? Whassit, pretty lady, wanna buy a knife?"

"I do, and I might want a lot more than one. I don't know how to get them back home, though." Su Jin looked into the stall again. Good, there were plenty of knives of all lengths.

"Ay, don't ya worry about dat. Every un of our knives comes registered, so ya can just send them over. We cover delivery too!" He finally hooked a big fish! The man felt the cloud hanging over him after a morning without any clients dissipate. What was that about seeing blood being unlucky? Blood was red, and red was the color of prosperity!