National Tide 1980.

At Taisho Insurance Company, both at its head office and branch offices, a slogan hangs on the wall directly opposite the main entrance: "Always move towards our goal!"

Next to it is the performance sheet for all the sales staff.

Just by glancing at the bar chart below each name, it's immediately clear who achieved how much sales that day.

According to the daily routine, a morning meeting is held at 9:30 every weekday, during which all sales staff sing the company song next to the branch manager.

Then the branch leader would shout out numbers, saying how many days were left until the deadline for achieving the performance target, and that everyone should do their best to complete the goal.

However, after Zuo Haiyoujiro was promoted to branch manager, due to his different position and the fact that he often had to attend meetings of the head office, he gradually discovered many industry secrets that could not be told to others.

He discovered that everything he had accepted in the past was a lie, and that he could simply let it go in one ear and out the other.

Anyone who takes a goal too seriously is bound to get a stomach ulcer.

press!

In reality, what lies hidden behind inspirational platitudes is nothing but inhumane exploitation.

Why do you say that?

This is because every year, 300,000 to 400,000 inexperienced salespeople enter the insurance industry, but at the same time, 300,000 to 400,000 are forced to leave.

We live in an era of mass hiring and mass layoffs of salespeople, and this is a result of the insurance companies' deliberate actions.

In reality, these new recruits are referred to as "initial customers" by the insurance company's senior management.

The term "initial stage" means that as long as the company hires a salesperson, even if that person is not very capable, they can initially attract four or five clients through personal connections with relatives and friends.

But once they run out of connections, their performance will get worse and worse.

Therefore, many insurance companies actually rely on the strategy of "getting sales without getting orders" to increase customers. The human resources department is even more important to the performance than the sales department.

As a result, two out of every three new hires resign within a year.

This industry has never been able to shake off the "use and discard" approach to hiring.

Only after discovering this did Zuo Haiyou realize how lucky he was to have overcome so many obstacles and come this far, as an "initial customer" who had once been exploited.

And that's not all. In Japan, where the insurance market is now nearly saturated, relying solely on his old methods of attracting customers to sell insurance is no longer effective.

Therefore, in order to survive in the fierce market competition and to better understand customers and more accurately improve the emotional value they provide, the wave of computerization to improve efficiency and process information has swept through the industry.

Taisho Insurance Company, for example, now encourages its sales staff to cater to customers' preferences by giving them gifts based on survey data.

They even secretly encouraged their sales staff to develop romantic relationships with clients.

To put it bluntly, from the company's perspective, the best salespeople are those who will stop at nothing to achieve their goals, as long as they can secure the order.

But at the same time, it also means that for someone like Zuo Haiyou, who graduated from night school in a poor mountain village, the insurance company has actually completely closed all upward mobility channels.

The opportunity to rise to the top based on outstanding performance, as it was in the past, will never come again. Yujiro Sōkai is a lucky passenger on the last train.

Even if he himself were to re-enter the insurance industry now, he would never have another chance to sit in the position of branch manager.

Therefore, it is clear how important the current position of branch manager is to Zuo Haiyoujilang.

That doesn't just mean having his own office, with a large desk and a sofa and coffee table for receiving guests.

This means more than just that he could frequently use public funds to entertain clients at upscale Western restaurants in Shinjuku and Akasaka, and accompany them to karaoke.

This also means that he has transformed from a corporate slave oppressed by industry rules into a beneficiary of those rules.

This means that having successfully achieved upward mobility and a complete transformation, he can conveniently transfer most of the performance pressure to his subordinates without having to worry too much.

Moreover, he had already paid too high a price for this position as branch secretary; it was a position he had worked very hard to obtain.

In this situation, if you were to ask him to go back to the past, it would be better to kill him; he would absolutely never allow that to happen.

But the biggest problem now is that his speculative mistakes have left him with huge debts, and he's almost at his wit's end trying to cover it up.

It's worth noting that Yujiro Sōkai's office and his subordinates' shared office space were adjacent, separated by a floor-to-ceiling glass wall, and were originally very quiet.

However, the constant collection calls from underground money lenders and consumer loan providers to Zuo Hai because of his overdue payments attracted particular attention.

Usually, the person demanding payment over the phone will keep cursing, and Zuo Hai can't openly discuss the debt issue with them.

Fearing being exposed at the company, he pretended to be answering a client's call, saying things like "Hello" and "Please take care of me," which naturally made the other party even angrier.

Moreover, spending too much time on the phone can arouse suspicion. After only a few words, he says, "Okay, I understand... goodbye," and hangs up.

Then the other party called back and said, "You can't even pay the interest, what kind of attitude is this!"

All he could do was continue to play dumb and say, "Okay, thank you, goodbye. Goodbye."

Besides, it might be okay once or twice, but if it happens every day, over time, people in the company will definitely become suspicious.

If the company finds out about my situation and I get fired, I won't even get severance pay.

Therefore, even when he goes to the toilet, Zuo Haiyou Erlang is always thinking about the phone.

He would often find opportunities to leave the company and go to the public phone downstairs to call loan companies, using the newly borrowed money to pay off old debts that were already pressing.

To put it bluntly, his financial situation was on the verge of collapse, as if someone had a knife to his throat every day.

That's why he had no choice but to beg Taniguchi for money.

Moreover, in order to temporarily have money to appease those small loans, he had no choice but to steal his wife's gold jewelry.

Even so, problems still occurred.

In fact, the day after meeting with Guguchi, Zuo Hai left the company at noon to sell gold jewelry, and then went to two or three loan companies. After paying off part of the loan with the money from selling the jewelry, he returned to the company close to the end of the workday.

As a result, one of his subordinates secretly complained to his superiors that same day, saying that he often slacked off during work hours.

Zuo Hai was publicly berated by his superior, Minister Er Gong.

Now it turns out that his situation is extremely precarious.

If he doesn't get enough money soon, he'll find it hard to keep going on like this.

But to make matters worse, even the bank sent him a payment reminder because his mortgaged property continued to depreciate.

He will need to repay part of the loan or provide more collateral.

When Zuo Hai, who had just returned, saw the registered letter on his desk, he had a bad feeling. After opening and reading it, he felt a wave of dizziness.

To be honest, although he knew that housing prices had been falling, he never dreamed that he would receive such a demand letter. He had always thought that he wouldn't have to worry about the bank's loan until the repayment period was over. But now he was in trouble; the bank's move was completely unexpected.

Even if he gets the money from Gukou tomorrow, it will only be enough for him to pay off other debts.

He really had no way to deal with the mess the bank had made, unless he could find Ning Weimin immediately.

But that's absolutely impossible.

So Zuo Hai slumped into his chair, holding the letter, his forehead covered in cold sweat. He thought and thought until he got off work, but he couldn't find another person like Gu Kou, someone he could ask to borrow money.

Just then, the office door was pushed open, and Keiko, one of Zuo Haiyou's subordinates, walked in from the empty hall carrying a bag, with a wronged look on her face.

"Minister, the client I was just talking to went too far. He touched me inappropriately and even asked me to go to karaoke tonight. What should I do? I really can't take it anymore."

Gui Zi was his subordinate and also his mistress, and Zuo Hai certainly understood her intentions.

Usually, these are her excuses to ask for gifts or to claim more expenses.

Zuo Hai was used to satisfying her, and would usually take her out to play and buy her small gifts, which would comfort her.

But today's situation is a bit different. Zuo Hai is currently immersed in troubles, and even he himself is in dire straits.

At this moment, looking at Gui Zi's coquettish face, he suddenly felt a little annoyed—this woman used to fawn over him, only wanting to take advantage of his fame; now that he was in trouble, she would probably leave soon like everyone else.

Zuo Hai almost couldn't contain his anger and impulsively started cursing at him.

"Get out! Who let you in? No manners at all, you didn't even knock!"

Gui Zi was completely stunned by the reprimand, turned pale with fright, and burst into tears on the spot.

"Why are you being so fierce? There's no one else here."

"We can't do without others; this is a company, so we have to be aware of our role as employees..."

"What's wrong with the company? I worked so hard to secure a big client with an annual premium of three million yen, and this is how you treat me? If you keep putting on airs like this, I'm really going to get angry. I might as well quit."

Hmm? Surprisingly, hearing about the three million order actually changed Zuo Hai's attitude.

He's incredibly shrewd; he can clearly distinguish whether someone is useful to him or not.

"Wait, are you serious? You really closed such a big insurance deal?"

"Yes, he was the head of general affairs at an organization. I met him by chance at a coffee shop. He seemed to like me a lot. In order to pursue me, he took the bait after only a few conversations and wanted to buy insurance for all fifty of his subordinates in the organization." Gui Zi boasted with no small amount of pride.

"Has the contract been signed yet?"

"The contracts haven't all been signed yet; I only signed a few today. There are too many people involved, requiring the name stamps of over fifty people, which is what's troubling me. The other party will keep bothering me because of this. I'll have to go to their office several times, and it probably won't be finished in ten days or so. But I did get the money ahead of schedule; they paid half of it."

That last sentence was like a flash of inspiration to Zuo Haiyoujilang, making his eyes light up and his attitude even more attentive.

"Thank you for your hard work. You handled this policy well. I was wrong earlier; I was too rude. But there was a reason for it. Someone complained to my boss about me today, which is why I got so angry."

Zuo Hai simply put his arm around Gui Zi's waist, speaking in an extremely gentle tone.

"Who is it? What did he accuse you of?" Gui Zi's anger subsided considerably, and she expressed her indignation and worry about Zuo Hai being accused.

However, Zuo Hai couldn't afford to fully enjoy the emotional value his lover brought him; all he could think about was the money. "Where's the money? If you bring it back, give it to me first."

Gui Zi didn't think much of it, took an envelope out of her bag and handed it to her, "It's all here, a total of 1.5 million in insurance premiums."

Zuo Hai took the envelope, his fingertips touching the thick stack of banknotes, and his heart began to pound.

This 1.5 million was like a lifeline falling from the sky.

Putting everything else aside, handing it over to the bank is enough. There's no other way for the time being anyway. Gui Zi can at least delay things for a few more days, so why not use it temporarily? We can always find a way to make up for it after the contract is signed.

As for how to make up for it... well... at worst, we can just use someone else's insurance premium to cover it later.

He was already adept at using the tactic of robbing Peter to pay Paul to deal with his personal debts.

Moreover, being a branch leader does bring certain advantages, but he had never been forced to this point before.

But things are different now; he has no other choice.

"Go wait for me at our usual shop. I'll come find you after I'm done. After we eat, I can take you to the department store. How about it? Are you happy?"

Zuo Hai patted Gui Zi on the shoulder in a friendly tone, and Gui Zi happily walked away. "Can I get my commission this month?"

"Of course. Need I say more?"

After Gui Zi left, Zuo Hai immediately stuffed all the money into his drawer and locked it up.

At this moment, he leaned back in his chair, smoking a cigarette, and gazing out the window at the skyscrapers of Tokyo.

The sky had darkened, just like the gloom in his heart.

The joy I felt earlier had long since vanished, leaving only the shackles of debt and endless panic.

He recalled his childhood dream—to leave his impoverished mountain village, make a name for himself in Tokyo, provide a good life for his family, and make his brothers and sisters proud of him.

But now, instead of bringing happiness to his family, he has become a heavily indebted swindler.

He not only betrayed his marriage, but he is also about to betray his company.

As night fell, Zuo Hai was alone in his office until he saw the entire darkness before he finally made up his mind.

There was no other way. Since fate had been unfair to him, he had no choice but to survive by any means necessary.

As for betrayal and depravity, what do they matter in the face of survival?

The neon lights outside the window lit up, casting a long shadow of him, like an inescapable shackle, binding him in the ashes of the bubble economy, leading him step by step into the abyss.

Just as he was about to leave, the phone on his desk rang again.

He answered the phone, and this time it was Miyoko calling; his wife's voice was cautious.

"Honey, are you still working overtime? I have something to discuss with you. Rinko said she's been very busy lately and wants me to help manage the bookstore more, so if you agree, I'd like to spend more time there each day..."

Zuo Hai suddenly exploded in anger, "As a wife, isn't your family the most important thing for you? What kind of image do you project when you go out in public like this! Now even part-time jobs aren't enough for you, what about the children? Are you that eager to go to work?"

He hung up the phone, his chest heaving violently.

It wasn't that he didn't want Miyoko to work, but that he was afraid—afraid that Miyoko would become more and more capable like Rinko, and afraid that she would discover this herself.

At that point, he, as the branch leader, would be completely unable to hold his head high in front of them. (End of Chapter)