"Then what?" Chen Shi asked.

"I said that doing this was risky, and that we needed to buy some equipment. I gave him some money and the first price that came out of his mouth was a million. I told that kid he was crazy. I gave him 400,000. No more, no less. Just the 400,000. I transferred the money over to him on the spot.”

"Why 400,000? Does this number have any special meaning behind it?"

Director Wei was silent for a moment. "Old Geng borrowed 400,000 yuan from me before. Both of us knew what 'borrowing' meant. It meant giving it to him for nothing! He said that he wouldn’t send out the letter if I gave him 400,000 yuan. I was going to give him the money when I went over to his house that day, but what he said sounded so awful. He acted all high and mighty even when he got a bargain. He was just so petty. So I changed my mind..."

"You thought that instead of giving him money, you might as well use the...